THEME AREAS

1001 Intelligences

Do you know all the different kinds of intelligence in the world? Did you know that plants possess even more sophisticated perceptive capacities than animals? In this session, we will get the chance to discover some forms of intelligence that we would never have imagined. Connective intelligence, artificial intelligence, and the intelligence of plants and animals. Collective, group intelligence, and the intelligence linked to work. The intelligence of travellers, used to understand what is hidden behind the information that circulates on social networks, retrieving objective data and making it a heritage to be shared. The intelligence that goes beyond the surface, that studies, reflects, becomes writing, images, stories, dreams.

Artificial Intelligence and new rights

Technological development has led to personal data being seen no longer as an individual and private element, but as a commodity of market exchange that can be used for different purposes. Big Data, Data Analysis, Cloud, Machine Learning, Internet of Things and Robotics all produce effects that have a strong impact on society and on the rules of civil coexistence, by asking new questions that need deep and articulated reflections. Protection of privacy, copyright rules, civil and objective liability, through to the evolution of the judicial process and the figure of the lawyer, are just some of the fields in which the arrival of robots and automated products and machine learning has generated wide-ranging debates and reflections.

Blockchain: technology for democracy?

According to many, Blockchain is the new internet, and beyond financial transactions, it can represent the internet of values in the broadest sense of the term. Blockchain has the potential to take on a general political value, a form of digital democracy with features such as: decentralization, transparency, sharing, security, the immutability of data and information over time. It is also built on characteristics such as trust and community that can be cornerstones of a democratic and supportive society.

Book(e)Book with booktuber corner

A packed program of meetings with authors, organised in collaboration with the most important Italian publishing houses and with some of the bookshops in the city centre (Feltrinelli, Ghibellina, Orsa Minore and Libreria dei Ragazzi). As usual, the Internet Festival will be dedicating an entire section to the world of books related to the Internet. Paper books and e-books will be narrating the digital world in the universe of fiction and writing. The Booktuber corner will allow speakers, guests and readers to be the protagonists: 5 minutes on camera to narrate, review and comment on a book related to the themes of the Festival.

Cybersecurity

The use of technology has transformed all of our lives, creating a “new world”, totally interconnected, where the boundaries between physical and digital space disappear. The often unconscious exchange of enormous quantities of data is constantly carried out through everyday objects. Although we know about and use all the ways to protect our personal safety in physical space, we are less aware of our digital risks and vulnerability. At IF2018, we will be discussing the fundamental role of public figures, private individuals, the research world and the media, to provide information and training so that everyone is an active part in the process of defending and protecting information and data. “Keeping safe” is not just a technological necessity, but a fundamental key to guaranteeing our data and full business operations. Technology, skills and behaviour: three basic reasons why cybersecurity is a “common good”.

Dat-ocracy

Recording the present, predicting and conditioning the future: all this is possible thanks to the increasing pervasiveness of digital technology, along with the exponential growth in computing speed. Constant internet monitoring allows us to find and process the enormous mass of information that we all produce on a daily basis. The value of the data collected is so great that specialized companies contend for them at high cost not only as a business model, but as a new form of power. In fact, data and algorithms allow us to influence processes on a global scale: they express opinions on professionals, restaurants, teachers and students, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, influence voters, monitor our health. At IF2018, we will be analysing the state and the power of data, applied to different areas of current affairs.

GAMEBOX

What kind (and not “how much”) of intelligence to you need for gaming? Does a game need to be intelligent in order to work? These are perhaps the main questions that the GameBox events will be investigating from different perspectives, manipulating, and – obviously – playing. Multiple intelligences, puzzles, eSports, Artificial Intelligence, interactive narratives, videogames and VR will be the protagonists that we will pull out of the box of games and scatter around, playing with breaking them up and sticking them together. This year, GameBox will also be looking at (video) games from the inside, together with those who think they are outside, as a creative product rather than a product, and as a tool for communication and social change. In other words, as something intelligent.

IF KIDS

At our eighth edition, the Internet Festival is opening a new area of activity: the IF KIDS section. An area dedicated to the youngest visitors to the festival who will be able to discover, explore and nurture their infinite curiosity. This year, girls and children from 0 to 6 years and their families can take advantage of the experimental game area Intelligenze in gioco! Open from Friday to Sunday at the Le Benedettine Congress Center.

Digital companies

Digital innovation is a driver of change for the entire production sector. An inexorable cultural change that invests all aspects of the life of a company and that is an extraordinary opportunity, while at the same time an absolute necessity to pursue digital innovation, in an agile and fast way. It is also forcing small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the traditional sectors of the economy to rethink the way they operate on the market. IF2018 will address all these aspects from different points of view, for example: the process of digitisation in traditional companies, innovative selection and recruitment models, interactions with other areas of technological development (big data, IOT, …), the creative ideas of start-ups and future scenarios of technological evolution, and relationships with different economies such as China.

It as company

The Registro.it space dedicated to small and medium-sized businesses, start-ups and digital marketing professionals. Training and updating for everyone on the tools of the internet, from e-commerce to video content marketing, from domain names to Facebook for companies, through to growth hacking and GDPR. And then the stories at .it, with Italian start-ups dedicated to food and tourism and much more.

I hate therefore I am

As André Glucksmann says: “Hate is the perfect answer, an argument that answers all questions, that ignores the facts, and sees in every obstacle the effect of a conspiracy. Hate accuses without knowing, judges without understanding, condemns according to one’s own pleasure; does not respect anything.” Social networks are the digital highway where words full of hatred and violence circulate effectively unpunished. Why does this happen? Are social networks really generating and nurturing such a negative sentiment? Is there a “modesty of the good” that hinders the spread of positivity and reasonableness? How can make “being social”, and therefore living in a way that respects the community, become a shared value, a challenge to be overcome in the awareness that “the cause of hatred lies only in the hater”. At IF2018, we will analyse the phenomenon from different points of view in order to understand, deepen and search for the way to make the web once again a place to express yourself freely.

Off the platform

Two special sessions entirely dedicated to deepening the diversity of the web – by Antonio Pavolini – by storytelling about communities and projects that grow and proliferate outside the mainstream social networking platforms. The idea is to go back to promoting access to the contents of the network, originating from real interests, which then trains us to discover and stimulate curiosity. From here, we will seek a way to actively search for contents able to counter the growing tendency on the part of the dominant platforms, which aim at users’ laziness by replicating – through an increasingly massive use of algorithms – “passive-TV” access to contents of the web.

Smart plate

Once again this year there will be initiatives related to food and the agri-food sector. We will talk about food and everything to do with it: online reputation and fake reviews, traceability and the use of blockchain in agriculture and the wine industry. But not just words: there will also be time for tastings, and at sunset, the 2018 edition of the Internet Festival will be offering a Happy Hour, by invitation and booking, with creative aperitifs accompanied by food, music and shows. Finally, over the days of IF2018, some Pisan restauranteurs will be finding their own way to express #intelligence in the kitchen, proposing their own personal version of an “intelligent dish” to their customers.

Post-visions

At IF2018, we’ll be seeing how cinema looks at contemporary society, with the visionary talent of authors and directors in a multidimensional journey that projects viewers far off in time, in an imagined, but more than realistic, future and in the depths of the contemporary malaise of men struggling with the challenges of innovation. Talent and intelligence also blend in the construction of a mix of different narrative forms to narrate unforgettable stories.

Smart PA

The PA is updating itself by creating digital ecosystems that facilitate dialogue between public institutions, citizens and businesses in order to facilitate access to services, improve communication, and make it easier to work and organise everyone’s lives. At IF2018, the Tuscany Region will be putting on the final act of #ToscanaDigitale, a participatory path that has involved the entire region on what has been done and what remains to be done for four themes of the digital agenda: infrastructures and platforms, services, smart cities, and new public communication. There will be an additional focus on Open Toscana: the open platform created by the Region, as a privileged place for participation and collaboration between citizens and the public administration. The Tuscany Region will be present during the days of the Festival at the Logge dei Banchi, where it will also be possible to obtain SPID credentials, to explain and find out more about the Open Tuscany services.

Shows, performances and sport

Docu-cartoons, jazz refreshed, plant music, hackathons, pop-up books: in 2018, the usual section of the Festival dedicated to music, theatre, performance and sport will be using different words and unusual associations to explore the theme of #intelligence in terms of creativity. Numerous and varied events are planned: itinerant ones with the pop-up books of “I Sacchi di Sabbia”, as well as concerts and performances to enliven newly re-opened historical locations. Sport is a marathon of technological development for developers and data analysts, supported by a run in the city with the half marathon created to raise awareness on the topic of organ transplantation.

T-TOUR

Ever since the first edition, the T-Tours (Tutorial Tours) have been a strong point of the Internet Festival. These are the educational and training paths that take place during the four days of the event. The aim of the T-Tours is to stimulate curiosity about digital innovation and offer useful tools to orientate oneself in the boundless world of the internet and technology. They are a journey through innovation, discovering the possible forms of the future, all under the banner of the digital revolution. They include activities aimed at every age group: from digital natives to tomorrow’s professionals, from uncertain navigators to experts in the field. There will be numerous activities designed for primary and secondary school students, for whom the T-Tours are an integral part of the educational activities offered by the school. A range of formats will be used to get participants actively involved, such as games, workshops, labs, tutorials, shows, installations and interactive conferences. In the 2018 edition of the festival, the T-Tours are enriched with proposals for school teachers.